


Breaking Fangs

by The_Lights_Dance_On



Series: Serpents and Hounds [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Canonical Character Death, Death, Drama & Romance, F/F, F/M, Getting Together, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24475189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Lights_Dance_On/pseuds/The_Lights_Dance_On
Summary: Valentine's Day is, for some, a day of mourning.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Original Female Character/Original Female Character, Original Female Character/Original Male Character, Regulus Black/Severus Snape, Severus Snape/Original Female Character(s), Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: Serpents and Hounds [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1670605
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	Breaking Fangs

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for continued references to death/s, very subtle allusions to sex, and swearing. The relationship between Idina and Caspian (and, to a far lesser extent, that of Remus and Sirius) may be discomforting to read if you are sensitive to abusive or toxic relationships. Please do not read if you feel it might trigger you.
> 
> I'm aware that I've been very quiet about this series and that's because I've been re-evaluating where I want to go with it. I apologise if anybody got very attracted to the world I began building in 'Tracking the Scent', but I've decided to take a step back. This series started out about Severus and Idina and that's where I want to keep my focus. More importantly, I did a lot of worldbuilding and meddling with the timeline in that work, and before I want to start writing several years into the future I want to establish how things are working after the events of 'Shedding Skin'.
> 
> Again, I really apologise because I can only imagine how frustrating this must be as a reader. I love Megaera as a character, but I think that's exactly what made me start 'Tracking the Scent' so hastily. I hope that you enjoy this one-shot, which - to me - makes far more sense as a place to continue.

Augusta Longbottom was staring out the open window. She jerked her wand mechanically to rock Neville's cradle when he began to cry.

Frank always bought Alice a bouquet of glittering golden roses on this day. 

Severus lit his candle, careful not to even graze the wax with his wand. It felt like a disturbance of the reverence of the occasion to have the candle know anything but flame.

Valentine's Day was the only holiday on which he observed any form of tradition. Even his last Christmas, the first since his release from Azkaban, had been anything but conventional (despite the inconveniently large tree and obnoxious lights.) The party, at the Potters, had gone as well as anyone could have expected; and after his rather brutal parting from Lily, the only reason he had attended was to extract some of Black's blood on the sly. Between that and the lack of alcohol, it had hardly evoked any Christmas spirit. So his black candle enjoyed some stature, even if it stood completely opposed to what one might expect from a Valentine's Day celebration. 

Severus did not see it that way. It was an occasion to celebrate love, after all, and he could hardly be faulted if love had brought him more death than joy. Since Regulus' disappearance - one that had been presumed to be fatal - he had honoured him on Valentine's by lighting a candle at midnight, drinking Firewhisky until it burned out, and then drunkenly brooding upon his overall misery (particularly that pertaining to his loneliness) until morning. 

Now, of course, that tradition was no longer appropriate, and so it had been changed. Idina sat across him, quiet and solemn. Although she had agreed to participate with him, something about it all seemed very private. He knew, as she lit her own candle, that it was for a man named Caspian. Severus knew nothing of him.

There would be no solitude-induced misery this year; how could there be, when Severus had just moved in to Idina's (the parlour firmly locked)? How could there be Firewhisky tonight? It seemed irresponsible for both of them to drink until the flames died out while her young daughter, Megaera, was in the house.

Severus had a _family._

 _Can Regulus see this?_ he wondered. 

Lily fastened the clasp of her dress with determinedly steady fingers. It was sensual; cut low, although not too daringly, and form-fitting. Black silk. James would like it. Her lipstick was a graceful pink, and the diamond clasp keeping her hair up matched the elegant stars pinned in her ears. 

She looked lovely. 

"Lils?" she heard James call. He would be dressed, she knew, in his good black suit. James was no lover of fashion, but he always looked as he should - a symptom of his upbringing which, although without blood prejudice, had been every bit as stiff and wealthy as most other aspects of Pureblood culture. They'd look a wonderful couple at the restaurant; put-together, attractive, _appropriate._

She ripped out the diamond clasp with surprising violence. She remembered a Valentine's Day a few distant years ago, where her hair had tumbled over her shoulders like this. No sleek dress, no diminished pink tones; it had been a night spent at home, an evening made up of moments of scarlet lipstick and black lace. There was no returning to that, of course; no becoming young. She wore the same set under her dress, but it wouldn't matter. There was no disguising her eyes. 

Lily was a mother now, and a soldier. She had been neither on that charming night in February that they had been married. She could mourn that girl all she wanted, but she was never coming back.

_"It's Valentine's Day," Regulus pushed, practically throwing the silver-wrapped package in his hands._

_"I already told you, I haven't got you anything. I can't afford you anything nice anyway." Young Severus was doing his best to look indifferent, but it was difficult; Severus remembered the feeling, flushed and exposed, another reminder of all he was ignorant to. Regulus, however marked he was, had never had to cope with that._

_"Anyone could afford this," Regulus insisted._ "Please, _Rus."_

_Young Severus glowered, but tore the paper open. "Dandelions?"_

_He remembered wishing on them in the park with Lily. Even that had been a foreign concept, one she had to explain to him._

_"You don't need to bother about repaying me or getting me anything back," Regulus said eagerly. "And they're useful in lots of Potions, aren't they? I had a peek in your store cupboard and saw you were running out."_

_Young Severus smiled despite himself._

"Your memories of Regulus bring you a peace," Idina remarked. She was dressed for the occasion, of course; an extravagant mound of black tulle, mesh, and feathers in her hair, opals at her throat, and a black silk dress. Her lipstick was red, Severus knew, but it looked darker in the flickering candle-light. He conjured a mental image of Regulus on Valentine's Day, and could not imagine much that was any more different. But then, when he tried to imagine Young Severus doing this, he could not.

He had changed, not just his love. 

"Yes," he admitted, watching the candles. They still had five or so hours to go before nothing was left. "And you?" 

Idina scraped her fingers against the candle's base, flicking away the wax that caught under her nails. "You know that matters surrounding Caspian bring me little pleasure to think on. I am thankful to him for Megaera, nothing more."

Severus arched an eyebrow. "Strange, then, to ask to participate in my Valentine's ritual." 

"Not at all," she said softly. "You are mourning the dead. I am mourning someone dead, too." 

"I always thought that Caspian was alive," he murmured. True, he knew barely anything of him; but then, Idina had never spoken about him like one might a fallen man, even a hated one. 

"I assume so too," she said, lip curling as if to demonstrate exactly how little she cared about his life. "I mourn the woman I was, to fall in love with him." 

A tear of black wax began to slide down her candle. Severus watched it. When it hit the base, he asked, "do you miss her?" 

Harry huffed in his sleep. Both Remus and Sirius looked over questioningly, but he didn't wake. He looked lovely like this, Remus thought. Even with the crop of messy dark hair, it was hard to associate him with James. Harry looked the picture of innocence with his tiny hands and flushed cheeks and curling little eyelashes, and that was something James had never been. 

There was a time when he would have said that jokingly; even teased James himself with it, because while Remus had worshipped him - his charisma, his loyalty, that mischievous golden glint in his hazel eyes - nobody had ever accused him of being _good._ He was a troublemaker, he always had been, even if not one teacher could call him that without some fondness creeping into their tone. But James had just recently found himself in the type of trouble that brought disgrace more than laughter. He had lost his job, and, thanks to the papers dragging the Potter name through the mud, a good portion of his reputation with it. He hadn't changed - what could make James Potter change? - but that was what caused Remus the most worry.

_"Of course you can accept it, Remus," Lily said, looking startled by his very objection. She smoothed over Harry's hair, the gesture a little mechanical. Motherhood seemed to have found something more restrained in Lily, although nobody could deny the intensity of her love for her son. It was the kind of love that Dumbledore talked about, the love that was the most powerful magic of all._

_"I can't possibly pay this fine. The money is far beyond my means," said Remus helplessly. "To accept it-"_

_"That's why I'm handling it," said James, clapping him on the back. He frowned at Remus' unconvinced expression. "You know you can always tell us anything, don't you? What is it?"_

_"You've just always been such a good friend to me," Remus said, his smile embarrassingly wobbly. "Your loyalty hasn't changed at all since school."_

_James barked a laugh. It was good at least that he was joking. "And just like school, Sirius and I got you into trouble. It's the least we can do to get you out of it. We're the Marauders, Moony. Of course we'll never change," James had said, and Lily had nodded fervently, and the evening had spiralled into laughter once the subject of that dreadful trial was forgotten. Remus' laughs had been forced, though, his thoughts racing._

He stared across at Sirius. Sirius smiled at him brightly - a sweet, puppy-like smile that Remus knew could twist into burning hatred in nothing but a moment. If they had never changed, how long had he been complicit? He resisted the urge to bury his head in his hands. He wished his suspicions would die. He wished he could be a teenager again, a teenager that thought none of these things. 

But that boy had been dead and buried ever since Remus had started digging up the past.

"What _is_ it, Moony?" 

"Nothing."

"Don't lie," said Sirius. His eyes were urgent, now, but just as lovely. "You haven't been the same for ages. Is it about what happened with Snape?" 

Idina's hands went to her throat, a protective reflex she decided she would do well to train herself out of. Severus' sharp eyes, although they did not move, would certainly have caught it.

It was her fault, she supposed, for inviting conversation. This was a ritual Severus used not to organise his thoughts, but to dwell on, immerse himself in them. He had made that very clear when she had asked if she could do so with him. 

"I miss my openness," she admitted. "I was so young. I - I had been in England some time. I still had my stresses and fears - the portraits, of course - but I was beginning to recover from my father's abuse. I had a new house, a new job, a new life. I was - excited. Too excited; not cautious enough. I was lonely, too, and I craved human contact."

She stared into her glass, wishing it were something stronger. Just a nice glass of wine would be enough to blunt some of the sharp edges of this conversation. She heard her thoughts, messy and humiliating, and felt uncomfortably exposed. 

"It is understandable," said Severus calmly. He was being respectful about matters pertaining to Caspian, as he always was; he didn't ask questions. Sometimes, Idina wished he would take her by the shoulders and scream at her until she broke down and told him everything. 

She wondered where that urge came from.

 _"Tell me what's in that_ fucking _room!" Caspian's coarse accent made the word seem especially vulgar. Idina took great pride in drawing her shoulders back and giving him her most glacial look. She was dressed for the part, too; hair rolled into a magnificent updo, glittering diamonds and sapphires in her hair, and silver lace dress robes. She looked like an ancient Winter goddess._

_He, she thought, and she hoped the thought showed in her body language and expression, looked like a drunk._

_"Stomping about like this is hardly dignified, Caspian," she said coolly. "Are you wearing those robes to the dinner?"_

_He stormed at her and grabbed her by the arm, even though they both knew she could have him regurgitating his intestines at a flick of his wand. Idina reminded herself of that fact to try and quieten the flickers of fear. "Tell me what I want to know. All of it."_

_"You don't want to know," she said, and even the contempt in her voice cracked and thinned like January ice. "You just think you do."_

Roberta looked up, eyes soft and wide, at the ceiling. Caroline smiled. It had been many years, and the sight of the Star Room - inspired by the ceiling at Hogwarts - still took her love's breath away. It had the constellations, glowing and sparkling as if just for them and - in the centre - the moon, like a pearl lit from behind. Since Lorna's bite, it had seemed to them to ruin it - like an oozing milk-coloured scab, destroying the sweetness of the stars - but now, all was well. It didn't matter that the moon was full tonight. Their daughter had had her dosage of Wolfsbane with a hot milk before bed, and she would be sleeping peacefully. It was a pleasure to mourn their family's troubles. 

"This year has been a blessing," she pronounced. Roberta turned to her. She looked beautiful like this; her brown hair sweeping over her forehead, and the defined muscles hard against the softness of the white satin she was dressed in. It suited her; suited her appearance, and suited her gentleness - her kind heart, her lyrical voice.

"Not without its troubles, though. These months - now we've been able to focus on prejudice, and not a cure - I've looked out at the Wizarding world and wondered how in hell we're going to do it." 

Caroline's forehead creased. She had rarely doubted that she'd been able to do anything and - although Roberta lacked in some aspects - her wife's determination and integrity made this exactly her sort of fight. "Love," she said, voice dipping in concern. "You worry?"

"Caspian … he was very interested in the parlour room," she said at last. Severus tried to hide it, but his eyes brightened with interest. She had told him practically nothing, after all. 

"He didn't know?"

"I told you comparatively quickly," she admitted. "I was very cautious with him. Perhaps too much - perhaps deceptively so. I never mentioned it, not even when we were wed." 

Severus tilted his head curiously, emboldened by her honesty. "He did not know even whilst you were married? After Megaera was born?"

"He never met Megaera," Idina said, eyes drifting to the fire. It was easier to focus on that than Severus as she was talking about such things. "I sent him a photograph. It's just - I - when I met you, it was easy to introduce you to the portraits. I think I was attracted to Caspian because he represented all they were not. Pureblood, but American, and he had very strong ideals about good and evil and right and wrong. Not that he was a very ethical person. Morality was more of a complex, than a lifestyle, for him."

Severus smiled wryly. "I know a few people like that."

James glared viciously at the reporter, a tiny little man with wrists that looked like they'd snap if he tried to cast anything. James' lip curled. He wondered how he would fancy being photographed himself, preferably whilst being dangled upside down.

 _One more picture,_ he thought. _Just let him take_ one _more._

Lily gave him a glance that said she knew perfectly well what she was thinking, and would not stand for a riot in this restaurant. She was eating her meal happily enough, icy looks aside, although James was just picking at his. He knew that ordering the fish had been a risk. 

Consequences had a habit of catching up with him lately.

He tried to ignore the irritating bursts of light in the corner of his eyes - like mocking fireworks - and to converse with his wife. This was supposed to be _their_ day, even if it was going to be plastered over the covers of publications like _the Daily Prophet_ for everybody to see. No doubt whatever Severus and his Dark Lady did would be compared favourably. James didn't know what You-Know-Who had been defeated for, if Death Eaters were going to be pardoned and then treated like celebrities instead of criminals, but the thought of how Snivellus was spending his Valentine's Day made his food taste even worse. Since the trial, he'd lost everything except his distaste for the greasy git, which gave him plenty of motivation to think about getting his own back. You didn't have to be a Dark wizard to revive what was dead. James missed his old life, missed it horribly, but it was _not_ out of reach. 

_"James,"_ said Lily, her eyes equal parts beseeching and angry. She had no love left for the man she had once called a friend, but she would have no part in his "revenge plots", as she hotly referred to them. Even though she was disappointed with him, the sound of her voice made James smile. 

He hadn't lost _everything._ He still had her, and he had Harry, who was very good at being James' whole world despite being such a tiny thing. Peter had been revealed a traitor - a wound that would _never_ heal - but he had Sirius, and Remus too, although he thought something was going on with Moony. The first thing he'd do tomorrow was owl him. 

It didn't matter what they tried. James always fixed it, always got what he wanted, and this time was no different. 

Just higher stakes.

"Caspian collected hunter trophies," said Idina, her voice drifting like she was in a dream. "Bits and pieces from rare magical creatures. I always found it a little distasteful. When he asked for a room to put them in, I suggested a small one in the corner of the house, and he took great offence. I should perhaps have offered him somewhere more prominent."

Severus made a quiet noise of disagreement. "It _is_ your house."

Idina said nothing. She wished Severus would feel more comfortable in her home since she had invited him to stay full-time, but did not want to draw any comparisons between him and Caspian. "Anyway, he demanded that I repurpose the parlour, since from his perspective it was always locked anyway. I firmly refused, so firmly that he grew suspicious. Eventually he realised that this was far more than a disagreement about decoration. He became - obsessed with what was inside."

_"Tell me what you're keeping in there," Caspian spat over her desk. He was dressed in violently Muggle jeans and a garish, chequered shirt. She pursed her lips. Even though she was only working, she was wearing a marvellous dark green blouse and an elegant pencil skirt._

_All the things that had once been attractive were becoming rather repulsive._

_"I don't want to have this conversation whilst I'm doing this. It's for an important client, and delicate work. Can you not wait for lunch?"_

_"We can have lunch now."_

_"Lunch is not had at just whatever time in the morning you decide," said Idina primly, sounding more like her mother than she would have liked. "I told you, the old parlour is merely full of the equipment I use for the more dangerous aspects of my work. The equipment is unstable. I won't take you inside and risk your safety."_

_"Bullshit! It's for your work, and you only visit it at the crack of the night when I'm sleeping?" Caspian slammed his hands on the table, and she jumped. He laughed cruelly._

_"Don't do that," she said sharply, although she could feel herself beginning to wobble beneath her cold tone. "You know I don't like it when you do that."_

_"And why's that, huh?" He put his face close to hers. His breath was unpleasant. "You know, I'm beginning to realise that I know fuckall about you."_

_"Most women, believe it or not, won't like you violently hitting their workspace because you can't control yourself," she said waspishly, turning her head away. "I'll see you at lunch."_

_Caspian's face contorted. "Tell me_ now." 

_"You do not have authority over me!"_

_"I'm your husband. I have the right to know whatever you're hiding in the home we share." His eyes glinted malevolently._ "Tell me." 

_Idina tilted her head back and gave him the most snobbish look she could, saying in her most contemptuous voice, "my home, I think you mean. Must I ask you to leave it?"_

_Caspian stiffened, enraged. The tone had perhaps been too much; his hand flashed to his wand, and he was spitting a curse._

"Well, of course that's what it is," said Remus. Sirius blinked at his tone; rarely did Moony sound so impatient. "What else would it be, Sirius? I mean, where did we go so wrong?" 

"We didn't go wrong," Sirius argued. He hated Snape for making Remus doubt himself most of all. "We were punished for going right."

"You tried to commit _murder,_ Siri." _It wasn't the first time_ hung in the air like stars. Sirius felt a growl climbing up his throat. He _hated_ stars; just another thing that his family had ruined for him. He mourned the person that he could have been. He could have been ordinary - perhaps even a Muggle - and never have had to deal with any of this shit. 

"That woman will prove me right, you'll see," he said violently. "Just like Snape. If he had died in the Shack, he'd never have become a Death Eater." 

Remus' head jerked, and then he was glaring. "If he had died in the Shack, I'd have been kicked out of Hogwarts." 

Sirius tensed. That had been a _stupid_ thing to say. He hadn't thought, he never did- 

He grabbed Remus' wrist before he could back off. "Shit, Moony, I'm sorry. You know I didn't mean that. I didn't mean it then, either, I should never have done anything to hurt you. I _should_ never. You know how important you are to me."

Remus smiled softly and accepted the apology, like he always did. Sirius wondered why he couldn't be like that, gentle and forgiving instead of wild and vengeful. "I know. It's just - sometimes it seems that your friends are less important to you than your enemies."

Sirius' eyes widened. He _never_ wanted Moony to feel like that. Never. "No," he promised, putting all of that fury and intensity inside of him that he disliked into making that one syllable sound as important and honest as possible. "No, Remus, you're the most important person in the world to me." 

He wasn't sure what happened. He saw Remus' amber eyes, and then somewhere in between he saw his own blue, and then there were lips on his own. It seemed fitting, on Valentine's Day. 

_Idina deflected it with ease, of course. Caspian was by no means her equal. But her face tightened in rage._

Never _would a man cast curses at her in her home again. She had moved to England to be away from such memories, not to create a new home full of flashing light and paranoia and injury. Especially now … a hand, unconsciously, placed itself over her stomach. She hadn't told Caspian yet. She wouldn't, when he was unstable. He might react badly, or try and use it as leverage against her._

_She tore her palm away quickly, but he hadn't noticed, of course. The man was, quite frankly, dense. That spell had erased any rose-tinted illusions she was still harbouring. There was only anger, and bitterness, and the desire to see him put in his place._

_She had had_ enough.

 _"Very well then," she said, voice brittle. "You can have your wish."_

"I told him," she said, voice oddly calm. "I told him all of it. At first he thought I was insane. Then he demanded proof, so I took him to see the portraits. He had a terrible time of it. They mocked and jeered at him. They told him the worst stories they knew of themselves, things that painted our family in the darkest possible light - which was, of course, beyond even the darkness he could imagine. And when he was just a second away of pissing himself with fear-" Severus raised an eyebrow. He had never heard Idina swear, not even when she had hit her hip on the side of the great marble table she had in her kitchen-"I used a Memory Charm on him, and then gave him memories. They told him that he had been unfaithful and abusive towards me, and that he was as such questioned by the Aurors. He fled to America and hasn't returned to the UK since. I imagine he's fearful of prosecution." 

Severus' face was entirely blank, peeled of any judgement. "Do you regret it?"

"No." 

Roberta went to caress Caroline's face, seeing lines of worry beginning to mark her forehead. Caroline worried too much, she always did, and it was no wonder when there was so much on her plate. 

"Don't you worry about me. I have no doubt that you'll do it one day. It's just going to be a long and difficult road." Her arms cupped as if they were holding a baby. "I just see her - that tiny thing, all big eyes and that shock of fluffy hair, and I think what this world will do to her before then." 

Caroline lent her head against her shoulder, the gesture deceptively hostile. Her eyes burned with fury. "As little as possible, if I have my way."

Roberta smiled slightly. She hadn't been lying. Caroline would tear apart anti-werewolf prejudice in Britain as much as it was possible for one person to do. But she was still one person, and she couldn't help but mourn all the moments of happiness that Lorna would lose to other people's ignorance and bigotry. She had already lost so much. 

But, she thought, stroking her wife's lovely hair, she had plenty, too. 

_"One day, all this will be over, you know?" said Young Severus. There was blood on the burnt tatters of his trousers. "No more raids. The Dark Lord will rule, and we'll live as we want."_

_Regulus' eyes were distant. "Do you think the Dark Lord is that sane?" he asked. Severus flinched at the blasphemy._

_"What?" he asked. "Regulus, what are you talking about?"_

_Regulus shook his head, a distant smile playing on his face. "Nothing, Sev, I'm sorry. You're right. No more raids."_

_"It'll all be over."_

The candles burnt out. 

Usually, this was his sign to delve into an even greater stage of misery, perhaps a bout of sobbing. Tonight, his Valentine's Day tradition had been strangely cathartic. 

Idina had fallen asleep on his shoulder. He smiled a little. If she was not in too spiky of a mood due to her revelations tonight, he could tease her about this in the morning. She had been adamant that she'd stay awake the whole night. 

He held onto that mixture of fondness and love as he carried her upstairs and turned off the light. It was like an internal candle; flame small and elusive, like a fairy, or the pollen of a dandelion wish flower. But something about it broke the fangs of love, and turned it into the sweet heart cut-out cards and boxes of chocolate that one might expect from Valentine's Day.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> If you enjoy fantasy/my writing (hopefully both) I've begun rewriting one of my old works entitled 'The Circus for Hire.' I've posted the already edited chapters on this account and will be adding a new one every Friday if it sounds like your thing.


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